The pressure on today's parents is rising. They have to find the right school, provide the right food and activities and they have to discipline in the right way. But Bondi Junction mother of four Virginia Gawler, 49, said it wasn't always that way.

Gawler and husband Warwick Grundy have four children: Julia, 21, Nicholas, 18, Miriam, 17, and their "little surprise", Marcus, who is five.

The parents of Marcus's friends, she said, are much more concerned about their children's development than those of her first-born.

"I think they seem a lot more fearful, much more anxious about doing the right thing and about raising their child by book," she says. The more parenting information there is, the more attentive parents feel they should be.

"Parents these days have got access to much more information. A lot of it just wasn't available in the early to mid-'80s," she said. "I think that's the main reason they're concerned that their child and their parenting are perfect."

Gawler, who works in the University of Sydney's media office, said although the kids' activity market is growing fast, she took Julia to as many activities as she did Marcus, including music classes, swimming lessons and baby gym.

"After-school activities were still around 20 years ago, but there wasn't quite the preoccupation with it. Activities like swimming lessons have always been a necessity," she said.

These days, parenting is seen by some as a fashion statement. "I think that parenting, birthing and children on the whole have become a designer commodity," she said.

"This new generation of parents seem to be concerned with controlling their kids. Their education, behaviour and everything."

She also thinks her parents' generation could be less involved with school without being seen as neglectful. "I don't think my parents went to one school meeting," she said. "Now you'd be hauled up before DOCS."

Gawler's childhood was very different to her children's. "I didn't go out. You just didn't, it wasn't an issue. Certainly not until 3am," she said. "I would never have dreamed of it."

The difference is even starker when compared with her parents' childhood. "My grandmother was of the school that believed children should be seen and not heard," she said. "I can see an enormous difference."

The way she raises her four children is "more egalitarian", although she's more security-conscious than her parents were. Despite all the manuals, theories and parental stress, she said: "No matter what you do, you can't predict what's going to happen down the track, especially from their teen years. It's impossible."